Forum:What is the most difficult bit of "suspension of disbelief" in the story?
This morning the hardest event for me to believe in GG is bridge made up of flying stones. As I explained, it doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the Mad Science in GG. What do you find hard to accept? Argadi 16:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC) :I was just about to add this to the FAQ, actually. It's been stated before that science in the world of Girl Genius is akin to magic in this world. When explaining how something works people use the phrase, "it's science", which means roughly the same thing as "it's magic" to us. :That's not to say that the writers don't strive to be internally consistent, but I do think it means that Agatha is going to find out that the bricks are made of some ferrous metal and are being shifted around with magnets, or that the castle has some kind of super sophisticated anti-gravitational engine, or whatever explanation fits what we've seen it do. Remember, even Agatha was baffled at how the kitchen was moving things around. : --mnenyver 17:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC) :To me, it's hard to say. Along with the flying stones, the time portal used by Agatha is far in advance of the technological level of the gaslamp fantasy world we see. However, if we compare the world of GG to the real world, rather than elements of GG to the GG milieu, simply the fact that clanks can be constructed with mechanical clockwork brains, and yet function at the level of sophistication shown in the comic, seems to be something contradictory to the nature not only of our reality, but of any possible reality. :One could also pick the fact that it was possible to fix Gil's falling machine before it hit the ground. So, for me, at least, it's very hard to choose. But since this is a comic with a strong element of humor, drawn in a cartoony style, that disbelief may have to be, in Tolkien's phrase, "drawn and quartered instead of suspended" at times, should not really come as too much of a surprise. : --Quadibloc 08:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC) :I'll go with "voice-controlled clanks". The way we do that now, it takes microchips--lots of them. I have trouble imagining a gaslamp technology that could do anything like that. For that matter, "intelligent clanks" are a problem, too. I actually find time travel less difficult to swallow. Probably, this is a result of my knowing a thing or two about microchips. Since I have no personal knowledge of how time portals are constructed, I'm more likely to believe in them. --DryBrook 21:45, 27 January 2009 (UTC) :: I like this answer. Here's something that has bugged me for thirty years: R2-D2 could understand English (something we can't yet do with computers—or with many of the "customer service specialists" I get when I try to contact companies), but they don't bother with the much easier task of allowing him to speak some English so the humans he interacts with can understand him. Argadi 22:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC) :::His function as a droid required him to be able to take and follow orders, but not to communicate... and those who would own an R2 unit would likely be able to interpret his beeping, as we see many are able to do so. Why give him an extra circuit to speak English when there was clearly no need for it? :::As for the voice-responsive clanks... well, "gaslamp technology" isn't the only thing at work here. This is a world where the Spark makes miracles. If you have a problem with "intelligent clanks," do you also have a problem with constructs? After all, they're the same thing, just built out of different materials. It seems to me (and this could just be my reading) that the Spark is required for clanks in general... and if they can wake up a machine, and create hive engines, and invisibility devices, and time portals, and... why is voice reaction hard to swallow? I understand what you mean about actually knowing how we do things in our world making it harder to believe, but this world is even called "fantasy" after "gaslamp" and therefore cannot be assumed to function by the same natural laws that ours does. 18:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC) ::::Don't mistake the nature of this thread--we do suspend our disbelief around here and we do accept that "fantasy" follows "gaslamp" in the subtitle. I don't think that anyone here is saying that any part of the story is 'wrong' or 'unbelievable'. The thread asked what was 'hardest', so we're answering. BTW, what did you find hardest to suspend your disbelief about? ::::Oddly, now that I think about it, I accept Frankenstein's monster as a gaslamp technology. Mary Shelley vividly described (in 1818) sewing the body parts together and the creature coming to life. Of course, she deliberately doesn't describe the secret of how to animate the construct. I believe that all that lightning business first appears in the various movies; certainly, the neck bolts first appear in Boris Karloff's 1931 makeup. I suppose that I accept the construct having intelligence and language because there's a human brain inside. ::::As to voice-command and AI in clanks, I guess that I'd have rather seen Agatha's be something that needed a driver, like the Vienna 707, rather than something that could people on its own. Nevertheless, I got myself over that hump years ago. --DryBrook 21:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC) ::::: Heh, I guess I did forget to respond to the original question, didn't I? The answer is... nothing comes to mind. The world does not seem to disagree with itself in any way that I can think of off the top of my head, and it is generally internal inconsistencies that bother me. I'll let you know if I think of anything. 21:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC) Klaus' overall awesomeness? The inability of sparks to, if not agree, at least agree to disagree? The sense of isolation, that each character, except perhaps among the Jägers, is an island? — in general, the lack of a religious/spirituality element? ⚙Zarchne 20:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC) :An island?! Have you read books 2-7 of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time? It makes these characters look like an anarcho-syndicalist commune! ;-) :Actually, you're quite right. Prof. Foglio has a lot of that each-character-is-an-island stuff going on here, but, for the moment, it's still cute. That's a tough balance, I think. If the characters cooperate too much, things get boring. If they're too independent, things get annoying. It's worth considering that all the Sparks are alpha dogs, not pack followers. :As for religion, I'd be interested to see one or more of the 7 seven popes raise his head, but Prof. Foglio has stayed away from that so far. Their call. A strong church tends to dominate a story like this. For my part, I can live with it being omitted. The absence of a strongly religious character or two, though, does seem strange. --DryBrook 02:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC) :: *snerk* You know, I like the Wheel of Time for its complexity... but I freely admit that my tastes are a little weird. As for the lack of religion... simply put, it's simpler to not involve it. Religion, once you've started putting it in, infects everything around it. It's not realistic to not have it, that's certainly true. But I can understand the decision, because they didn't want to distract from the story. You know? LadyVivamus 14:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC) ::: About that. The Church isn't in there, true. However, maybe religion is in there, but it's a religion that venerates a different Mystery. The in this story don't undertake risks, upend their lives "for the Glory of God". Instead, they --DryBrook 15:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC) :: "Absence of a strongly religious character"? What exactly would you call the Geisterdamen, then? ;-) And frankly I wouldn´t be surprised if Dingbot Prime and his various descendants actually worship Agatha... --Sir Chaos 20:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC) :: I haven't read WoT... I did read an Asimov "Robot" novel where the (human) characters are literally isolated... Coming back to this question, having been through my "Quest for the Island of the Monkey Girls", I realize that "religion" is indeed probably not what's missing, although "spirituality" may still apply. Coming from a post-pagan, pre-neopagan superculture I find pagan deities amusing, or useful as archetypes, or of historical interest, but not seriously worthy of actual worship, thence having little to do with religion per se. Presumably this is another area of inversion where common sense does not apply. Christianity may be fairly similar between the two worlds, but the prophet Muhammad, who forced the conversion of worshipers of many god to worshiping the One, is apparently missing. Furthermore, as I am trying to explore, it appears that the power of Loki (who maybe never was an object of worship in any culture) is the real power in Europa. :: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw :: That's the world of Girl Genius. Before I remembered this quote I was trying to think of something to say about Taoism. My feeling is that there is a lot of wisdom in Taoism (as in all great world religions). The idea of conforming oneself to reality is very deep in Taoism... The person who is in complete conformity to the Way (Tao) of things would be able to do everything and anything without effort, perhaps without "doing" anything. There's a Taoist saying to the effect of "the greatest master carver carves the least"; I interpret to this to mean he (or she, but) is able to apply the natural features of the wood to the need, maintaining its natural beauty and strength to a maximum degree. :: "Perfection in design is achieved not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing left to take away" is not obviously compatible with an "everything has a moustache" motif. :: ⚙Zarchne 03:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)